Meditations on Various Apocalyptic Imagery

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**Meditations on Various Apocalyptic Imagery **

The following are meditations on various apocalyptic imagery from an idealistic layer of meaning. Hope you enjoy it.

**The Woman and the Whore **

The Woman in Apocalypse 12 is, in the primary layer of meaning, the People of God, which in the OT was the Jews and, in the NT, is the Catholic Church. The Woman is the spouse of God, called to be joined to Him forever in unending Bliss. God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit shall offer Himself in truth and love TOTALLY to the Woman, penetrating the mystical Woman’s inmost being, that is, the inmost being of all the just that have ever lived or will ever live, and the same just shall fully receive the penetration of God’s immeasurable Truth, Beauty and Love and offer themselves back in an infinite spiritual ecstasy forever and ever, an eternal, mystical orgasm of supernatural love, beauty and truth.

Now, who is the Whore? The Whore is the children of the evil one, who do not seek to be espoused, or married, to the Creat- ***OR ***, but would rather turn away from the only One who can truly satisfy their longing and be “joined as a prostitute in spiritual fornication” with the Creat- ***ION . ***That is, the unjust seek their ultimate fulfillment from THIS World rather than the world to COME. They are therefore spiritually unfaithful to the God that made them and would rather prefer to have “intercourse” with created goods, a superficial, materialistic existence, rather than to seek the orgasm that transcends any earthly fleeting happiness, namely, the Beatific Vision, from which any creature, once they see it, can never look away. For, to see God as He is is the most incomprehensible beauty and fulfillment that is possible: the infinitely reckless family of love within the Godhead, three Divine Persons, all fully God, yet distinct in Personhood, in Eternal Embrace forever and ever.

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**The Dragon, the Beast and the False Prophet **

The Good Father is the Father of the Word, which is God’s Truth. And the Son is the Incarnation of this Word, the Word made Flesh. And the Holy Spirit is the breath between them, the Love and Truth that the Father and Son exchange from before the foundation of the world.

How much more so are the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet a diabolical trinity, the ultimate mockery of who God is in His Ineffable Mystery.

For, who is the dragon except the Father of Lies, even as the Almighty Father is the Father of the Truth?

And what is the beast except the lies of the dragon made *incarnate *, that is, the children of the evil one in all ages of history that are themselves the supreme imprint of the Original Sin, or fallen nature, in this world. For in ALL greater ages of sin, the dragon makes his lies alive in the flesh by sowing those children that rebel against the Eternal Father. These disregard His truth and will and seek, as in the Whore, their fulfillment from the things of this world instead of the One who governs the world to come, who desires to marry all human persons, both individually and collectively, even though so many countless ones do not keep their virginity to Him but are carried away in lust for the fleeting things, taking this depravity with them unto the grave, hence making their unfaithfulness eternal, punishable by the fire that is never quenched.

See, then, how that, as God the Father made His True Word incarnate in the Divine Son and indirectly through His children who carry in them the gift of His Sanctifying Grace, so also does the Father of lies beget spiritual children in the flesh, the beast.

And finally, just as the very truth and love spoken from all eternity between the Eternal Father and Son is Himself a Divine Person, the Holy Spirit, how much more so are the lies of the dragon spoken between himself and his wicked children summed up in the False Prophet, that Second Beast that comes out of the earth, which, as the earth is a foundation, claims that his lies are prescription for a sure foundation, when, in an objective reality, they are rather pointing to the utter lack of foundation, the chaos of the sea, from which the first beast arises and toward which that wicked one directs the earth to follow.

And what shall we say of the seven horns of the Lamb, and how this wicked Second Beast has two of them in like manner but speaks as a dragon? Well, now, remember the words of the Father who spoke eloquently, before becoming a heretic, the great Tertullian, who taught that the evil one in spirit is not creative but only steals the loving signs and goodness of God and PLAGIARIZES them into a twisted antithesis of their intended order. For this reason, the same Tertullian teaches that the dragon mocks and distorts the Sacraments into their counterpart.

Therefore, we anticipate that if the Lamb’s seven horns can be seen as the Seven Sacraments, the seat of His Redemptive power (even as horns are Biblical symbols of power in many cases), so the two horns of the false prophet are taking some two of the Sacraments of Christ and mocking them into their antithesis AND in such a manner that this mockery forms the basis of all wickedness, the summary of the very lies spoken between the dragon and the beast, that is, between the father of lies and his children.

Now, we remember that heretics, those separated from the Apostolic College of Bishops and Oral Tradition, retain only two Sacraments, Baptism and Marriage. Recalling this, shall we say that it is merely *accidental *that heretics have only these two sacraments? Or is it rather, that the mystery of these is that they form ***the base signs of all that is good in this world ***?

What do we mean? We mean that, what is ***Baptism ***but the base sacrament required for Salvation, requiring the minimal conditions for eternal life, faith and repentance, which is a mirror of the ***first great reason ***of our life according to the Catechism, namely, “To know [faith], love, and serve [repentance] God in this life”?

Secondly, we mean that, what is ***Marriage ***but the sign of what shall be for all the just, the ***second great reason ***for our existence in the same Catechism, namely, “To be married to God, that is, to be happy with Him forever in the next life”?

How much more so, then, should the evil one take what remnant goodness that heretics retain, which serves as basis of all that is good, and twist them into their antithesis, thereby becoming the base signs of all this is wicked in this world?

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And it is reasonable, for what is the antithesis of Baptism except the total negation of concern for God’s truth and His will, that is, that one should believe what one wishes, completely independent of God, and that one should do as he wishes, without regard or recourse to Divine Law in any sense? For surely, the one who negates even the base Sacramental disposition of Baptism is negating the very mode of being that is necessary for salvation and so makes oneself an utter enemy of God.

And further, if it is true that the other sacrament retained by heretics, Marriage, is the supreme sign on earth of our ultimate calling, which is eternal marriage to God in the world to come, what is the antithesis of this sign except the lie of the dragon that one needn’t seek this heavenly marriage and rather choose to “fornicate” with this world, with this life, with its fleeting and transitory goods, as if the pleasures, possessions and egotistical accomplishments of this life can fulfill the human person in place of the only One who truly can, the Eternal God that made us for unending union with Him?

Therefore, we can see that the twisting of these base forms of goodness, the remnant sacraments of here **TICS **, that is, Baptism and Marriage, form the ultimate basis of all that is wicked, and that, therefore, becomes the ultimate here **SY **.

**The Seal of God and the Mark of the Beast **

What also can we say of the contrast between the Seal of God in the forehead in chapter 7 of the Apocalypse and the infamous Mark of the Beast in the forehead or hand in Apocalypse 13? Obviously, they are spiritual. But how can we view them?

Well, use common sense. Does not the forehead cover the mind, which is the gateway of the INTELLECT of the soul? And what is the object of our intellect except God’s truth, that we may know Him and how He relates to us, in order that we may know His general will and desire to follow it unto the consummation with Him in eternity?

And what is the hand except the symbol of the “works of our hands”, which is really the works we do with our will, in so far as that we shall judged by our “works”?

How much more so should the protection of the Seal of God and the chastity of them who receive it be seen as really chastity of *faith *, ***that one’s intellect is not “harmed” by false doctrine ***. And why? Well, surely, as the Church teaches, the truths of God are the perennial foundation of our existence. “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” And again, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life”, and even, “I came into the world to testify to the truth. For, whoever desires to know the truth listens to My voice.”

But if the Seal of God protects one from the stain of false teaching, keeping one a “virgin and chaste” as regards doctrine, how can it mean anything except faithfulness to ALL of Catholicism, for only the true Bride of Christ, the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, has the fullness of truth without any stain of error, seeing as she is guided infallibly by the Spirit of Truth, the Comforter, the Paraclete, the Sanctifier of the human race?

Further, if we do see the Seal as this protection of Catholic infallibility in doctrine, then it follows that the Trumpets of the apocalypse that digress from that Sealing in chapter 7 down to the Mark of the Beast in chapter 13 can be progressive “doctrinal harms” of various degrees (the rise of greater affronts to Catholicism, such as Islam, Orthodoxy, Protestantism, “Enlightenment”, …) culminating with utter depravity in the intellect and will, the Mark of the Beast, where one would have the SUPREME spirit of stain of doctrinal deficiency, ***total apostasy ***, either through explicit rejection of all religious truth (as in the atheist) or utter indifference to such questions, despairing that anything can be known absolutely and for certain about God and the Divine (as in relativism).

That is, the Mark of the Beast becomes the ultimate culmination of the progressive doctrinal attacks on Catholic teaching, where man, in his “forehead”, or mind, considers himself the ultimate arbiter of truth, completely independent of God or even anything that is claimed of God (“who exalts himself above ALL that is called God or that is worshipped”, regarding the man of sin in 2 Thes. 2), and who, therefore, in his “hand”, having turned fully aside from the question of God’s truth, chooses to make the *works *of his “hands” his own, doing his own will without regard for God’s will, that is, total depravity in will.

These are just some meditations to apply to our own age, which is plagued with much indifference to religion, a spirit of neo-paganism, and a widespread materialism that is veritably like we discussed with the Whore of Babylon above.

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However, may we end on a positive note, in that, eventually, the “beast and false prophet” are captured by the Christ and cast into the lake of fire, and the dragon is chained for a great time, in order that Christ’s reign on earth might be peaceful for a long time before the dragon brings all these things back the final time, at his release, when Christ shall utterly vanquish evil and return to judge the living and the dead, even as now, the mystics buoy us up with hope that the modern secular apostasy will be cast into the fire and the Gentiles shall come back to the Church, where there shall be peace for a great time, a social reign of the Gospel in men’s hearts.

Only after this long age of spiritual peace must the final falling away come, after which Christ shall indeed return as the King of Judgment, vanquishing evil (casting the dragon likewise into the fire forever) and ushering in the Sabbath that shall never end, the New Creation, the Heavenly Jerusalem.